Virginia Giuffre, who has long alleged that she was trafficked and abused as a teenager by the late Jeffrey Epstein, has reportedly signed a book deal worth millions of dollars.
Giuffre also accused Prince Andrew of having sex with her when she was 17. She settled a case against him last year.
The news of the publishing deal, which was broken by the New York Post, follow reports that the British royal will seek to overturn his multimillion-pound settlement with Giuffre after she dropped an abuse case against the prominent US lawyer Alan Dershowitz.
In January 2022 the prince’s late mother, Queen Elizabeth, distanced the monarchy from Andrew by stripping him of his military affiliations and royal patronages. He then contested Giuffre’s sexual-assault case as a private citizen. She had alleged that Epstein and his lover, Ghislaine Maxwell, forced her to have sex with the prince.
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As part of their settlement, worth a reported $12 million, or about €11 million, Giuffre is believed to have signed a one-year agreement to not discuss the matter. The prince did not admit any wrongdoing in settling the case and has always denied the claims.
Sources suggested that Giuffre is unlikely to be free to write about the prince or their settlement. They also told the New York Post that Giuffre’s book, whose publisher is not yet known, would embarrass the British royal family, particularly after the recent publication of Prince Harry’s autobiography Spare, which has become the fastest-selling nonfiction book in Ireland and the UK of the past two decades.
It may also overshadow the coronation of Andrew’s older brother, King Charles, on May 6th, with one insider telling the publication that Buckingham Palace “will want as little drama as possible, so this is terrible timing”.
Pages from a Giuffre memoir were unsealed in August 2019 from her lawsuit against Maxwell, which was settled. The Billionaire’s Playboy Club, as the 139-page book was called, chronicled Giuffre’s teenager years inside Mr Epstein’s alleged sex ring, where she claimed she was made to have sex on command. The book was never published.
In the UK, the Sun newspaper reported at the weekend that Andrew is “considering legal options” after Giuffre’s dropping of her case against Dershowitz and that the prince may attempt to overturn their settlement in a US court. It said sources claimed the he never wanted to settle with Giuffre and was “bounced” into agreeing a deal by the palace to avoid any negative publicity from a potential court case.
